Pages

Friday, November 27, 2009

I'm visiting a friend at UCLA this thanksgiving. What? USC students can't get along with UCLA students? Anyway, she's gone to bed after claiming her one hour of sink/bathroom time, and we'll be getting up, not too early tomorrow to go Black Friday shopping! Sadly, there are no awesome classic films being shown right now, and every girl wants to see New Moon. Ugh, at least i was forced to watched Twilight last, Friday, was it by Cさん. Terrible movie. The awkwardness in the character interactions made it seem as if there was absolutely no script at all, or the actors couldn't perform. Awkward. I haven't read the book,but I've heard that it's just as terrible. Terribly popular.

Well, we had our student made, dorm-made thanksgiving dinner. I washed the rice; what an accomplishment! Victor was introduced, no, I was introduced to Victor, I don't know if it was Hさん's poor introduction, as she failed to mention my name, or the fact that the fact that I was a trojan that triggered no response from him. Not even a "Hey, welcome to UCLA!" Is it my face? *Hさん's keyboard's s key is tricky. What did I like? Talked about video games again. H?さん is a Neotokyo player. I've finnaly found one. Also an avid(if i have any idea how to use that word) MMORPG player. No games for him in college though. I brought my PS3 to school, but have only really been able to play recently, and just Assassins Creed II, with all the hype surrounding it's launch. Ubisoft at USC, the Lineage trailer, got me excited enough about the game that I didn't wait for the delayed PC version. I've loving the game, but the graphical capabilitie of the Playstation don't seem to be able to handle the field of vision well at all. Is it just my system? When the textures shift slightly, or objects appear before you as you close the distance between you and them, the "reality" of the game, the immersion that I expected (as i play with nearly no HUD), is broken.

Anyway, H?さん says that his approach would be improvement on existing ideas, basically, "I want to make an MMORPG, now what can I do differently to make it better." Everyone asks, what kind of game do you want to make. Yet, I hesitate to choose. There are genres to be created. I want to make a kind of game that you didn't even know existed. My approach would be to build the framework from scratch. I hope i don't give up after laying the *whatever those wooden, oh, piles?! (wiki...) yes, a PILE! I'm urprised I even remember the word. Oh, and just looking up contruction on wikipedia, I realized the green material clad around the to-be Student Union isn't just and Orangetexture placed in for the level design of the build. It's an insulator. I really though it was just temporary texture. -_-

So, what did I want to talk about? Oh, we had chicken. Yes, chicken, pre-cooked turkey was sold out ;_; On the boring side, list of events. I got off the bus at the right stop, after freaking out thiking i had gone all the way to Santa Monica, Then I couldnt find the small Le Conte cross-section, walked down to Westwood. The reliability of buses scares me. Epecially after that close shave in Irvine. Don't think the bus wa ever gonna come. *Wow this paragraph is really boring, but I'm putting down some reasons to learn to drive.

Hum, any meaning to today's events? I read Wolpaw's interview (VALVe, with the other writer, also) but maybe those thoughts should be posted to IMD? He views the world through his (i'll dub) "current-project" filter, and everything that happens, experienced, sees, hears, is compared to work. "How can this be used in my game?" So, maybe I should turn on my filter right now. I chose paper as my currect game project while sitting in the dining hall, Parkside, I believe. Twyla Tharp says to keep your project a secret though, and they'll be more fun to do and FINISH. I desperately need to finish, or even, start. The star I'm reaching for is iPhone game. Unfortunately, the concept suits 3D more, so maybe i should develop the other one. Maybe

What I wanted to talk about in the post was my experience reading on MangaFox today. One Piece. Awesome. Bleach, scanlators left a "watermark" and it was unreadable. So I didn't read it. Naruto, nudging forward a bit. One Piece movie-prologue chapter? Double-awesome, reminded me of tons of characters, which I'm sure One Piece alreasy has. That nostalgia calls for some re-watching of One Piece, if not the entire series, whatever my sisters will.

This caught my eye. *Oh and there's so many topics in the post I wont know how to tag this.
Well, I'd like to include an image with everpost, but the image might defame my blog, and I just had technical trouble, own no rights to the image (thought i posted Bae Doona), and, yeah. *typing that out on the internets.

So, the title of the manga Need a Girl *translated from korean (여자친구만들고파!) caught my eye. Hey typical manga for teenage boys, I wanted to see how this one would hit the demographic, and its portrayal of women, and the art (actually, "any short-haired girls?"). It's a little too straightforward on the perversion. From the pages that I've read, lots of fanservice, fantasy, relations with classmates. But what really caught my eye was the use of popular Chinese idioms, wise sayings, phrases your parents or teachers would recite into your brain in an effort to encourage better, healthier behavior. At first, I had thought "The early bird gets the worm" would be the main theme of the chapter, but the idioms kept coming. I'm not on my computer right now, so maybe I'll edit this post with the idioms in Chinese later.

But, these were four-character idioms that I learned in Chinese Culture class, coming right back at me. I love it. I love the idea of applying those timeless sayings to a situation in a manga. However the schoolgirls are a tad bit too distracting.

How would this be taken in a game? Perhaps the interactivity would make the lesson stick, for the lack of a better term. Mostly, a choose your own adventure/visual novel with moral elements. Thoughts, thoughts?

P.S. How many words have i written in the past hour? Blog vs. Diary! I'd rather not hurt my head over it, but my organizing self can't resist. Perhaps a historian would like to do the dirty work and compile it later. I don't feel obligated to have work done by others. Now, those labels...